Area 51 light guns

[markt]

The light guns on my area 51 game have ceased to work.
When you pull the trigger you can hear the sound they make but nothing happens on screen.
HELP!!

[modessitt]

Did it happen on both guns at once?

If you're hearing a sound (probably the reloading sound since the game would have to register the emitters on the screen for a firing sound) it means your trigger switches are working, but not your emitters.

Put the game into test mode and get into gun calibration.  (If you don't have a manual or knowledge on how to get to this point, you can probably find the info in one of the available manual download sites.)

Once you're in gun calibration, aim each of the guns at the screen to see if the crosshairs show up.  If not, then your guns aren't emitting the signals out the barrels.  If you do get crosshairs, go ahead and calibrate by following the oncreen instructions, then exit out and see if your guns work.  Sometimes your calibration can get so out of whack that you could hold the gun against the screen and still miss your target.

If your guns aren't emitting, there could be several reasons why:

1 - Your emitters have burned out.  You will need to dismantle the gun to get to the small board with your emitters.  These usually look like clear or purplish LEDS pointing out the barrell.  Unsolder and replace with like parts.  If you have poor soldering skills, or have trouble finding the proper emitters to replace with, you can order complete emitter boards for your guns.  (Try Happ)  You don't usually see both of these go out at once without a reason, like a power surge.  Is this game plugged into a surge protector?  If not, get one.

2 - Your emitters are being interfered with.  Sometime a small layer of dust or dirt on the LED can interfere with the signal, or the LED could have been jostled loose from its seating causing it not to be aimed perfectly down the tube.  You have to dismantle the gun to make sure.  Had a customer who redid a room with drywall dust everywhere and didn't cover his game first.  Wondered why his game started acting funny.

3 - Bad connections.  If both guns went out at the same time, the most obvious reason could be a connector coming loose.  Was the game moved recently?  Double-check the wiring coming from the guns into the cabinets, making sure a wire hasn't broken loose or been pinched.  There will usually be a connector inside the cabinet, as well as to the CPU.  The fact that your triggers are working, however, could mean that your bad connection would most likely lie on your emitter board inside your gun.  I've seen several instances where a leg of the emitting LED has broken off, or had a bad solder connection on an LED leg. 

4 - Problem with your CPU.  This is the one you hope it isn't, as your troubles increase and your chances for a cheap repair go down the drain.  The only sure-fire way to rule this out would be to plug it into another Area 51, but I'd try the other things first.

Shooting games do like the glass bezel and tube to be fairly clean, also.

On another note, if you get crosshairs during your calibration test, but you still can't shoot anything, I would skip directly to solution 4.

[grantspain]

just to add you can also get gun problems if the contrast/colours/brightness are too low

[modessitt]

Oh, yeah...  How did I forget that?

Thanks for the assist, gs!

[markt]

The left hand worked intermittently since I bought it, originally the right gun worked ok.
When I first bought this I did the gun calibration and the right one calibrated but the left one would not work at that time.
Now neither work.
I will try disassembling the guns to check the emmiters.
Thanks for the help.